» Narrow Escapes

first
Story added to validate post.

A few years ago a couple of my friends who sky dive regularly asked me if I wanted to do a jump for charity. I decided to give it a go, this would be a solo jump rather than one of those things where you're strapped to someone that knows what they're doing.

The weekend of the jump arrived and my friend drives us down to the drop-zone for the weekend. The Saturday is spent being given a presentation on what you're suppose to do and what can go wrong and how your deal with it and the equipment we would be using. This is followed with lots of drills that make you feel very silly. Jumping into a star position, looking at the sky and shouting "one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, check canopy" and pretending to check a parachute that doesn't exist. Repeat this for hours, then do another drill for hours to practice cutting away the main chute and pulling your reserve in case things go badly wrong.

Sunday morning is spent doing drills as the weather isn't good, in the afternoon it clears up and the 12 of us there for our first jump are suited up and get into a very small plane. Our helmets have a headset radio, but we can only receive and it only works when you get closer to the ground. I'm at the back of the plane, due to some kind of ordering system that I don't understand so I'll be the last person out.

The drop zone is interestingly situated, in one direction is the sea, in another a static caravan park, in another a railway line and farm fields and in another a lot of trees. We're told if you're going to miss the drop zones big white land on me cross you can go anywhere but if you land on the caravans it will probably kill you. We get a nice view of all these things on the way up.

The plane starts circling, and one at a time the people on board throw themselves out, shout their chute opens and they check the canopy. All good so far. I'm the last up, I get in position in the door and confirm I'm ready. Adrenaline is pumping in my viens, but I feel oddly calm. I get the go and I throw myself out and into the star position.

"one thousand"
"two thousand"
"three thousand"
"one thousand"
"two thousand"
"three thousand"
"check canopy"
...
"bugger"

Looking up, instead of a nice open chute. I've got a twisted tangle of chute and ropes. We've been told about this in training though, so I know what to do. I take a few seconds to work out which way round the ropes are rapped and then stick out a leg and fling it about in a form of sky hokey cokey. The idea being this will spin me round and untangle the lines.

Spin round a bit, check altimeter, it's getting close to the end of the green. I have to use the reserve chute, before it hits red. Otherwise, even opening the chute I'll hit the ground to fast.

Spin round a bit more, check the altimeter. That yellow section is running out fast.

Spin round a bit more, my chute finally opens. I check the altimeter, I've got a tiny fraction of yellow left. The red zone was seconds away. I won't be dying today.

Now where am I? I've ended up being in a bit of an odd place. I'm also a lot closer to the ground than I was expecting. I have to do some tight turns to get me back lined up with where I need to land.

I managed to land on the edge of the big white cross. I'm also the 3rd person of the 12 to land. Which means I overtook 9 people when I was falling like a stone.

Also one of the other people who was doing the jump got a bit scared watching me fall passed like a rock with a streamer attached and this caused them to forget to stear their parachute to the landing zone. They landed on the far side of the railway lines and had a bit of a walk back to the drop zone.

So that's how I escaped death and made some money for charity.
(Thu 19th Aug 2010, 12:35, More)

» Vomit Pt2

Drinking game ends in demolition
1st Post, be gentle, etc.

Casting my mind back to freshers week of my 1st year of university, the year was 1998 and I was a typical long haired metaller. I was not uninitiated in the ways of beer but new to drinking games. The hall bar had set up a circle of chairs on the stage, with a large black plastic bin in the middle for the purpose of having people play drinking games as a spectator sport. The bin was for when someone inevitably puked. There was some form of prize involved for the last man standing. A few of the people I would soon call friends, myself and some others from our hall went on stage to play.

~~~ wavey lines to mark passage of time ~~~

I was drunk, very drunk and not feeling good. The drinking game was going on around me still but I had little idea what was happening. It was like I was watching it though a wall of water. Then I had that spinning feeling in my stomach that I had come to know would mean I was soon going to be sick. I had a particularly useful ability to projectile vomit when I was sick. I developed this ability to get the nasty process over with quickly and avoid getting it in my hair or on my clothes. I stood up suddenly, and as described by my friend Sam who was also playing the drinking game, produced a very sudden and perfect pressure hose like blast of vomit into the bin. Staggering somewhat, I left the stage, feeling a little better to head to the toilets. Now the journey involved a short walk, where I paused occasionally as my vision swam around, I headed out the bar and into the hall. The toilets where at the bottom of a short flight of wooden stairs.

Suddenly, my vision zoomed in on the bottom of the stairs then snapped back to it's usual state like a cheap effect from a late night B movie. My head swam and my stomach didn't like it one bit. A second blast of hose powered vomit left my body and spread itself down the stairs. I felt better, a lot better, sober even. The stairs, I suspect felt otherwise. Luckily, the bar manager had followed me out as I looked particularly bad and handed me a mop and bucket to clean the stairs. They always had one on standby when doing drinking games. I did a reasonable job of cleaning and then wobbled my way back to my bed.

A couple of days later at breakfast the bar manager approaches me and informs me that the morning after my redocoration of the stairs building inspectors were due in. They mistook the odd smell of the stairs for the wood rotting and ordered them to be ripped out and rebuilt. I was personally responsible for costing the hall of residence one flight of stairs, luckily, the bar manager was also a student and thought it was funny, so he didn't tell anyone. :) I went on to work behind the bar.

Length? About 15 steps.
(Wed 13th Jan 2010, 17:49, More)